Chapter 47: Leaving Babel

Neon Genesis Evangelion ANIMA — LNCrawler · All chapters

Chapter 47:
Leaving Babel

WITHOUT WORDS, WRITING, OR DIAGRAMS, no orders could be sent or received, and the chain of command was nonexistent. Outside the shimmering, rainbow-streaked walls of the tower, the terrified Russian and European forces fired blindly from their outer positions—and sometimes at each other.

Their enemies, after all, were entities beyond human comprehension and didn’t conform to any kind of rationality. Once the soldiers began to question who the enemy actually was, there was no end to their doubts. Most of their unsanctioned attacks were against the tower itself and had zero effect—though, to be fair, if their commanders had still been able to give orders, the tower certainly would have been the primary target. But without any way to evaluate the results of their bombardment, the soldiers kept on shooting. The JSSDF maser howitzers, which had been dispatched with the observation team, fired from ineffectively long range, continuously searing the tower’s walls.

But as this went on, many of the soldiers began to realize what was happening to them.

They weren’t able to communicate, not because they’d forgotten language, but because their words were being received as unintelligible on the other end.

Not only could no one understand each other, their own machines were barely functioning. But even without any avenue for communication or coordination, each individual still believed in their own ability to make decisions and take action. And so, somewhere around half an hour after the tower rose, many soldiers had come to understand that all their fighting was accomplishing nothing.

Without a word, they began to walk.

They weren’t allowed to speak. They weren’t allowed to gesture. No one looked at anyone else. They just silently walked away. That’s probably what the people in the myth had done.